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Swiss destination management organizations (DMOs) are usually to a substantial portion supported by public funds. In order to establish political majorities for such public financing, some proof of the impact of the use of these subsidies must be of interest. The main goal of the case study presented in this paper is to develop a comprehensive tool for measuring the efficiency and effectiveness of DMOs.

By using the structure of the Business Excellence Model of the European Foundation for Quality Management, the tool is mainly based on a system with 80 to 100 indicators. Selected DMOs are examined by a multi‐level methodology. Available information is collected within a document analysis. Subsequently, the directors of the DMOs are interviewed. Collected data are also consolidated by building and calculating comparative budget key figures and by conducting efficiency computations. Two benchmarking phases are conducted in order to develop and test the tool. In a first pilot phase four Swiss cities' DMOs are benchmarked. After an overview and revision of this first phase, a second phase with Swiss Alpine destination DMOs follows.

Both pilot phases were successfully completed. The two conducted phases of the benchmarking clearly showed that the choice of indicators guarantees a holistic view of the situation of the DMOs. The tested benchmarking tool can be labeled as qualitatively valid.

With the research project as a whole a new and tailor‐made benchmarking tool for DMO could be successfully implemented.

Amidst a worldwide concern with teacher quality, recent teacher reforms often focus on how to certify teachers, how to evaluate teachers, how to recruit the best and brightest people to be teachers, and how to fire bad teachers. The political discourse of these policy reforms oftentimes depicts teachers as largely inactive transmitters of knowledge and does not recognize the agency they have in affecting standards. Yet, such a narrow framework may suppress teacher pedagogy, practices, and also teacher beliefs. In this chapter, we seek to understand the extent that two types of math teacher beliefs – traditional and constructivist orientations – are related to national cultural factors. In doing so, we test both “culturist” and “neo-institutional” hypotheses by observing how those beliefs vary across different nations.

The enabling technologies that emerged from information technology (IT) have had a considerable influence upon the development of marketing tools, and marketing has become digitalized by adopting these technologies over time. The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate the impacts of these enabling technologies on marketing tools in the past and present and to demonstrate their potential future. Furthermore, it provides guidance about the digital transformation occurring in marketing and the need to align of marketing and IT.

This study demonstrates the impact of enabling technologies on the subsequent marketing tools developed through a content analysis of information systems and marketing conference proceedings. It offers a fresh look at marketing's digital transformation over the last 40 years. Moreover, it initially applies the findings to a general digital transformation model from another field to verify its presence in marketing.

This paper identifies four eras within the digital marketing evolution and reveals insights into a potential fifth era. This chronological structure verifies the impact of IT on marketing tools and accordingly the digital transformation within marketing. IT has made digital marketing tools possible in all four digital transformation levers: automation, customer interaction, connectivity and data.

The sequencing of enabling technologies and subsequent marketing tools demonstrates the need to align marketing and IT to design new marketing tools that can be applied to customer interactions and be used to foster marketing control.

This study is the first to apply the digital transformation levers, namely, automation, customer interaction, connectivity and data, to the marketing discipline and contribute new insights by demonstrating the chronological development of digital transformation in marketing.

Institutional changes, in a historical context, through simultaneous evolutionary and metamorphic processes either deform or reform long-enduring institutions. The chapter delves into the Persian history from the early days of the reign of Nāṣer al-Dīn Shāh-e Qājār in 1848 to the recent years and traces Persian institutions' historical transformations, which culminated to the Persian women entrepreneurship. Thus, the chapter first sets the historical context in each period and then sheds light on the pivotal issues of each period's women. The undergirding base of the discussions is the assumption of the change in institutions as natural metamorphosis in the animate. Finally, the discussions contribute to the conceptualization of the Institutional Triangulation and in the case of Persia, a cultural-driven triangulation, which has paved the way to the formation of a stupendously hegemonic patriarchal and masculine sociopolitical economy in Persia, that has historically affected women's institutionalization, subjugation, subordination, marginalization, socialization, emancipation, and most recently Islamization phases.

China is a major energy import powerhouse, its trade deals have significant impact on international energy trade and global energy markets. The purpose of this paper is to explore the role of energy in China’s preferential trade agreements (PTAs) and their impact on Chinese imports of oil, gas and coal.

An extended trade gravity model framework is applied to explore the dynamics of China’s annualized energy import flows from the 22 economies that have PTAs with it for the period 1995–2015.

The effect of PTAs on trade patterns varies across the product groups and agreement clauses. The dominant factor affecting trade flows of coal, crude oil and oil products is the average tariff level. Its impact is less significant for gas imports, which are more affected by policy arrangements represented by a PTA variable. The depth and scope of a PTA do not affect Chinese energy imports patterns.

This paper is focused on exploring the effect of China’s trade and foreign relations strategies on its energy imports through the prism of its PTAs. Estimating the direct impact of China’s initiatives in the areas of trade, investment, security, culture, etc., on its trade flows of energy products and other product groups using the methodological framework proposed in this study would contribute to better understanding of the issue.

The findings can assist both China and energy exporting countries that target Chinese market in better understanding the drivers of trade flows of energy products and design their PTA strategies accordingly.

This study applies the trade gravity model framework to assess the impact of specific components of preferential trade agreements – tariff reduction and depth and scope of agreement – on energy trade flows differentiated by product group.

The authors examine the role of national corporate governance characteristics on both the number of deals and the total value of acquisitions in 28 European countries between 2008 and 2015. In line with previous studies, our analysis suggests that deal value and number of acquisitions follow a cyclical trend but each with different peaks and troughs throughout the sample period. Likewise, we observe a positive relationship between the level of GDP and the number as well as the total value of acquisitions. Among the three types of corporate governance institutions, namely corporate ethics, accountability, and financial market development (efficiency), the authors find that efficiency and a relatively higher level of corporate ethics within the target country in comparison to the acquirer country are positively related to the value of acquisitions.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the relationship between host country (HC) language skills, fear of terror, and cross-cultural adjustment (CCA) of expatriates based in host countries with different terrorist threat levels.

Integrating the expatriate adjustment framework by Black et al. (1991) with social identity theory-based literature, this study first, theorizes about the effects of both fear of terror and HC language proficiency on CCA and, second, puts forward the moderating effect of the actual terrorist threat level on the relationship between HC language proficiency and fear of terror. Hypotheses are tested using survey data of 116 expatriates based in host countries with different threat levels.

HC language proficiency is positively associated with CCA. Yet, it is also positively associated with fear of terror, which is, in turn, negatively related to CCA. Consequently, the beneficial effect of HC language skills on CCA is reduced in environments where expatriates experience significant fear of terror. While the actual threat level has a direct positive effect on fear of terror, it also positively moderates the relationship between HC language proficiency and fear of terror.

This study extends prior literature on expatriation to dangerous environments by zooming in on a specific type of risk factor associated with international assignments, i.e., terrorism, and by integrating HC language proficiency and fear of terror as important factors, which may influence CCA in contexts in which expatriates experience significant fear of terror.